Tweet of the Week

When the dog whistling in Parliament House works a little too well pic.twitter.com/dRpzAwJXE9

— Andrew Brown (@AndrewBrownAU) March 10, 2019

Quote of the Week

“1 Cardinal George Pell, on 11 December 2018 you were convicted by a jury of five charges of sexual offending by you against two young boys in 1996 and 1997 in St Patrick’s Cathedral, East Melbourne. You were convicted of one offence of Sexual Penetration of a Child under 16 years and four offences of committing an Indecent Act with or in the presence of a Child under 16 years………

Sentence

219 Cardinal Pell, will you please stand.

220 All things considered, I impose the following sentences upon you…..

Total effective sentence

226 I direct that the sentence of 4 years imposed on charge 2 is the base sentence.

227 I further direct that 12 months of the sentence imposed on charge 1, 4 months of the sentence imposed on charge 3, 2 months of the sentence imposed on charge 4 and 6 months of the sentence imposed on charge 5 are to be served cumulatively upon charge 2 and upon each other.

228 This means that I sentence you to a total effective sentence of 6 years’ imprisonment.

Non-parole period

229 I set a non-parole period of 3 years and 8 months. That means you will become eligible to apply for parole after serving this non-parole period. 

Your release on parole will be a matter for the Parole Board.

Pre-sentence detention

230 I declare that the 14 days’ imprisonment you have already served in pre-sentence detention, is reckoned as time already served against the sentence I have just imposed.”  

[County Court Victoria, [2019] VCC 260, DPP v George Pell (Sentence), excerpts]

Tweed, Ballina, Lismore & Clarence candidates standing in the NSW State Election on Saturday, 23 March 2019

These are the Far North Coast sitting members in the NSW Legislative Assembly (Lower House):

Geoffrey Keith PROVEST, NSW Nationals MP for Tweed 

Tamara Francine SMITH, NSW Greens MP for Ballina

Thomas GEORGE, NSW Nationals for Lismore - not standing for re-election 

Christopher GULAPTIS, NSW Nationals MP for Clarence

These are all the candidates standing in the four state electorates and the positions they drew on ballot papers for the 23 March 2019 NSW State Election:

TWEED 

BALLINA 

LISMORE

CLARENCE

See: https://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/Ballot-paper-templates-for-2019-NSW-State-election

Something to think about - Part Three

@drkerrynphelps, 9 March 2019

The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 April 2018:

Sixty-eight per cent of the current federal parliamentarians are men, and that’s the best statistic we can squeeze out of them. Eighty per cent of the government MPs and 78 percent of cabinet ministers are men. Seventy-nine per cent are of Anglo-Celtic background  and 70 per cent of the parliament are between 40 and 60 years of age.

Most of the state parliaments aren’t much better. South Australia is the worst, at 67 per cent men. NSW is not far behind at 61 per cent. Tasmania and the two territories are the only ones close to parity.

Interestingly, in every state and territory, except South Australia and New South Wales, the Labor Party is close to an even gender split. The Liberals and Nationals, however, hover between 75 and 80 per cent men in every state but Tasmania, middle aged white men, being only one tenth of the population, are over represented at a ratio of about six to one in government.

Climate Change creates risks for Australia’s financial stability warns Reserve Bank deputy governor

The Guardian, 12 March 2019:

A deputy governor of Australia’s central bank has issued a stark warning that climate change poses risks to financial stability, noting that warming needs to be thought of by policymakers and business as a trend and not a cyclical event.

As a debate over coal and energy fractures the Morrison government, Guy Debelle warned a forum hosted by the Centre for Policy Development on Tuesday that climate change created risks for Australia’s financial stability in a number of different ways.

“For example, insurers may face large, unanticipated payouts because of climate change-related property damage and business losses,” he said. “In some cases businesses and households could lose access to insurance.

 “Companies that generate significant pollution might face reputational damage or legal liability from their activities, and changes to regulation could cause previously valuable assets to become uneconomic.

“All of these consequences could precipitate sharp adjustments in asset prices, which would have consequences for financial stability.”

Debelle noted Australia had traditionally come at the climate change debate largely through the prism of its impact on agriculture, but he said the changing climate created “significant risks and opportunities for a broader part of the economy than agriculture – though the impact on agriculture continues to be significant”.

He said policymakers and businesses needed to “think in terms of trend rather than cycles in the weather”.

“Droughts have generally been regarded, at least economically, as cyclical events that recur every so often. In contrast, climate change is a trend change. The impact of a trend is ongoing, whereas a cycle is temporary.”

He said there was a need to reassess the frequency of climate change events, and “our assumptions about the severity and longevity of the climatic events”.

He said the insurance industry had already recognised the frequency and severity of tropical cyclones and hurricanes in the northern hemisphere had changed, and this reassessment had prompted the sector to reprice how they insure and reinsure against such events.

“We need to think about how the economy is currently adapting and how it will adapt both to the trend change in climate and the transition required to contain climate change,” Debelle said.

He said the transition path to a less carbon-intensive world was “clearly quite different depending on whether it is managed as a gradual process or is abrupt”.

“The trend changes aren’t likely to be smooth. There is likely to be volatility around the trend, with the potential for damaging outcomes from spikes above the trend.”

Debelle noted the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had provided “strong evidence” that another half degree of warming was likely in the next 10 to 30 years.

He said work from the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO pointed to an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, and noted “extreme events may well have a disproportionately large physical impact”.

“There is also a greater possibility of compound events, where two or more climatic events combine to produce an outcome that is worse than the effect of one of them occurring individually,” Debelle said.

“Combined with the increased volatility, this increases the likelihood of nonlinear impacts on the economy.”

Debelle said assessed through that lens, climate change-induced shocks to the economy would be “close to permanent” if droughts were more frequent and cyclones happened more often. “That situation is more challenging to assess and respond to.”

On 13 March 2019 ABC News reported that a leading climate analyst warns that extreme weather risks mean nearly 1 in 10 Australian houses may be uninsurable due to climate change within the next few generations, that is in est. 30-90 years.

Did Morrison & Co send your chance of getting a decent pay rise up in smoke?

“Brace yourselves Australia — everyday things are about to cost more, and your chance of a pay rise has gone up in smoke” [News Corp Journalist David Ross writing in news,com,au, 8 March 2019]

Well it had to happen. After five and a half years of an Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Coalition Government the nation has reached what is known as a per capita recession.

This hasn’t occurred since the Howard Government’s last full year in power.

Almost sixty per cent of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product comes from consumer spending and five and a half years of deliberate wage suppression by both the federal government and the business sector means the majority of consumers have little to spend.

The economy has been markedly slowing under Scott Morrison’s economic policies, first as federal treasurer then as prime minister.

Annual growth has now fallen to just 2.3 per cent according to the Reserve Bank.

This slowing has a cascade effect.

All economists news.com.au spoke to suggested the per-capita recession would hamper wage growth and — combined with increasing costs of living — make things more expensive.

“It’s a feeling of lethargy in the economy rather than outright collapse, It makes it very hard for wages to pick up when the economy is depressed,” Mr Koukalas said.

Nine weeks out from the Australian federal election and the Nationals appear to be panicking

News.com/au, 8 March 2019:

The federal Nationals Party could potentially face a leadership spill following reports Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has lost the confidence of the majority of his party.

The Courier Mail reports several MPs are calling on the Party leader to resign or face a spill. Several MPs reportedly expressed fears that waiting until after the election would be too late, particularly for Queensland representatives.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce appears to be frontrunner for the Nationals leadership.

The Guardian, 8 March 2019:

Barnaby Joyce has declared he will be a candidate if the deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, spills the Nationals leadership, but the current Nationals leader insists he is going nowhere.

The declaration of intent by Joyce to the Northern Daily Leader on Friday will keep the spotlight trained on internal party tensions after the former Nationals leader suggested in October he would retake the leadership if drafted but denied doing the numbers.

“If it was called open, of course I would stand,” Joyce reportedly told his local paper on Friday, adding he was not “driving” the instability. “I’ve maintained the same line; I have never asked one of my colleagues for a vote, I don’t intend to.”……

A sense of despair has gripped the National party, with MPs critical of McCormack’s performance as leader, and frustrated that he won’t stand up to the Liberal party on issues like energy prices, and taxpayer-backed investment in new coal plants.

But Nationals remain divided about whether or not dumping McCormack this side of the election is a good idea.

Joyce, despite the travails that forced his resignation as leader, has rusted-on support in the Nationals party room, with estimates he commands between six and seven fixed votes in a party room of 22.

But some MPs are vehemently opposed to Joyce returning to the leadership, viewing that eventuality as the only thing worse than the status quo. Nationals sources predict if the leadership was spilled there would likely be a field of several MPs that would split the vote.

Joyce resigned as Nationals leader in February 2018 after a sexual harassment complaint by rural advocate Catherine Marriott compounded weeks of bad headlines caused by his affair with a former staffer and now partner, Vikki Campion.

With New South Wales due to vote in a state election in ten days time and the NSW Nationals with at least four state seats at risk - Tweed, Lismore, Coffs Harbour and Barwon, this recent state poll cannot have settled federal nerves.

Financial Review, 12 March 2019:

A state-wide survey of 1003 voters in The Australian conducted from Friday to Monday [9-11 March] put support for the Coalition and Labor Party at 50 per cent each, a similar result to a Sun-Heald poll on Sunday that had Labor ahead 51 per cent to 49 per cent.

The latest poll would cost the government six seats - it has a six-seat majority - and would lead to a hung Parliament if replicated across the state, illustrating the closeness of the election, which will be held on March 23.